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Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Bits & Bites

Dunwoody's Village Burger opened a new location in Johns Creek Monday. The new Village Burger is located in a The Fresh Market-anchored shopping center on Old Alabama Road. Village Burger opened in suite 220, most recently occupied by Yoforia, the frozen yogurt shop. Interestingly, when Village Burger opened in "Dunwoody Village" in 2010, it replaced a former Bruster's Real Ice Cream shop.

Cosmetics and skincare retailer Kiehl's is on the move at Lenox Square. Soon Kiehl's will relocate from their current space on the main level near Mont Blanc to a temporary space on the upper level. Upstairs, Kiehl's will occupy the former Jacadi kids shop, adjacent to Abercrombie & Fitch. Kiehl's will reportedly move at least one more time before arriving in their new home sometime next year, most likely on the main level.

The current Kiehl's space is reportedly being combined with the current Mont Blanc space to create a roughly 2100 square foot space that will house Atlanta's first Diane von Furstenberg boutique.

Doc Chey's Dragon Bowl is now open at Emory Village. The new restaurant replaces Doc Chey's Noodle House and features a similar menu to that of its predecessor, but with a streamlined ordering process. No additional changes at existing restaurants are planned, nor are there any immediate plans for expansion of the Dragon Bowl concept.

Paper Affair is closing all four of their Georgia locations. The stores are at Roswell Wieuca Shopping Center on Roswell Road near Chastain Park, Peachtree Battle on Peachtree Road, Northside Parkway near West Paces Ferry Road and North Point Parkway in Alpharetta. Three franchised stores in Texas will remain open. The Atlanta Paper Affair stores are currently offering 30% off and are slated to close "within two weeks."

Freddy's Custard & Steakburgers opened its new McDonough location this past week and reportedly set a single day opening record. The new restaurant is located at South Point in McDonough and is one of many Georgia locations planned. Freddy's offers a menu similar to Steak & Shake.

Chama Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse is opening in place of Modern Restaurant & Barat Tower Place in Buckhead. The 13,000 square foot restaurant plans to open in November and would compete with established churrascaria Fogo de Chão. Fogo de Chão has been in Atlanta for many years and today operates 24 domestic locations and nine more in Brazil. Chama Gaucha, by comparison, operates three locations in San Antonio, Houston and Chicago. Atlanta has played host to a number of failed churrascarias, in fact one space in Buckhead played host to two failures. Boi Na Braza and later Chima both opened in heavily renovated versions of the former Kudzu Cafe on Peachtree, and both failed to compete with Fogo. I predict that the large space and intense competition from Fogo will result in a short life forChama Gaucha in Atlanta.

In one the least surprising restaurant moves of the past few years, Cardamom Hill will close later this month to allow owner Asha Gomez to focus on her growing restaurant portfolio near the Beltline. Upscale Indian eatery Cardamom Hill opened in January 2012 in a small shopping center on Northside Drive, just off I-75. While the food was good, the layout was a bit strange and the location was terrible. It was Antico Pizza without the terrible BUT funky location. The owners of downtown's FAB made a similar move when they first announced their then upcoming Buckhead outpost, F&B would be in addition to their struggling downtown eatery. Shortly before F&B opened came word that the restaurant would indeed replace FAB. Cardamom Hill is slated to close after dinner service July 28th. A new bakery cafe concept, Spice to Table, which Gomez calls an “Indian patisserie,” is set to open August 1 in the Studioplex development on Auburn Avenue in the Old Fourth Ward. Later this year, Gomez will debut a new fast casual fried chicken concept, Spice Road Chicken, at nearby Krog Street Market.

A longtime reader has started a list of "Kids Eat Free" establishments and has asked that I share it in hopes that others will contribute to it. Please click here to view the list and feel free to add or edit to make the list as useful and up to date as possible. Feel free to include both local and national restaurants.

Simply put, Atlanta is no Dallas. Given the track record for failure in this very niche market, I don't see this newest entrant to the market succeeding. The space is also gigantic and the rent is surely pricy considering its size and Piedmont Road frontage. Twin Peaks and Farm Burger both do well, but are very different from a Brazilian steakhouse. I could be wrong, but I don't see this joint last much longer than a year or so.

As for the Chima space, it was sold to bank...for a branch...over a year ago. Unclear what the hold up is.

Someone on CL said that Asha Gomez was evicted, not that she chose to close Cardamom Hill... have no idea if that's true. However, if it is true then maybe a switch to much smaller eateries is the right move for her.

Sad to hear about Paper Affair. My wife and I have used their services for close to a decade.

I know a few stores closed in recent years (Phipps Plaza, Birmingham metro), but it appeared both North Point and Peachtree Center were doing well. My wife and I spoke to a few North Point employees Sunday about this, and they said it was a "corporate decision" on Friday, and that no one in the store was expecting it.

Again a bit sad, as there aren't many stationary store options in the Atlanta area -- guess everyone's going the online route.

I agree with the above poster commenting on paper affair.... I shopped there often at Phipps and later in mountain brook in the birmingham area.... I don't think they did as well in birmingham because of the longstanding family owned stationary stores in the mountain brook area.... People in mountain brook are fiercely loyal to longstanding local businesses.. Especially if they are family owned... They don't even mind paying a good bit more for a longstanding business....

I have to say, I'm not surprised by Paper Affair. First off, you can get any of their products online (and at cheaper prices) and many other Atlanta stores carried the same non stationary items. The biggest thing of all to me, is the few times I went in, I was treated like crap by the employees, like I wasn't good enough to be in their stores (Phipps, Wieuca and Peachtree Battle locations).

I find that there are many similarities between Dallas and Atlanta as I have lived in Atlanta for several years and spent a considerable amount of time in Dallas. Aside from an actual street grid and better highway/interstate system in Dallas, the two cities are laid out very similarly (downtown, midtown, uptown, large suburban office areas vs downtown, midtown, buckhead, perimeter) and the largest/wealthiest component of the metro population is north of downtown.

Dallas has more restaurants and overall probably a better international crowd but I think the cities are very, very similar to each other

I was just down in FLA and noticed that both in Tampa and Orlando Brazilian steakhouses seem located across the street from each other. In Tampa , Texas de brazil and Boizao are in the west shore area, an upscale shopping and office district. In orlando Fogo de Chao and Texas de brazil are a block apart on international drive. Sort of like the Brazilian version of the CVS - Walgreens setup.